The Consultation Core will fill an extremely important role in the Center; it will be the core responsible for advising investigators about the use of the Center's instruments for their studies. In particular, the Consultation Core will be essential for assisting users who have little experience with the microscopes available in the Center. Consultation will be free of charge and arranged through email or telephone. Each of the two Research Associates in the Center will dedicate 20% of their effort to consultation. They will be the initial contact persons for potential and established users and will discuss the experimental objectives of the investigator, give information about the capabilities of the instruments and suggest which instrumentation would be appropriate for a given study. Additionally, consultation can be sought after experiments are performed about methods of data analysis and interpretation. In addition to guiding investigators, the Consultation Core will serve the important task of screening potential studies to determine whether it will be appropriate to use the Center equipment for a given experiment. As discussed in section D2.2, we have selected members of our Steering Committee with diverse expertise, including electrophysiology, time-lapse imaging, calcium imaging confocal and two-photon microscopy as well as the use of voltage-sensitive dyes in physiological studies. The strengths of these individuals will be tapped by the Research Associates to assist in the consultation role of this core. Additionally, this core will send electronic newsletters to user groups. This newsletter will include items such as links to papers relevant to the use of the instrumentation in the users applications, as well as updates about new indicators and caged compounds, and information about the Center activities.